Spot color inks are used to achieve a specific color more accurately than process mixtures of cyan-magenta-yellow-black (CMYK), to avoid the halftone pattern associated with process color printing, or to print colors outside the gamut of CMYK. A spot color ink (also called “spot ink”) provides a pre-mixed color ink that is directly printed, instead of a color that is obtained by halftoned levels of CMYK components at the time when the color is being printed. Spot color inks are common in the offset printing trade, and are becoming available for digital production color systems. Typically, spot color inks are offered in the colors of popular samples-based color systems. For example, a user may acquire a particular spot ink color by selecting the color from a suite of samples of existing spot ink colors.
Spot color inks are often selected to ensure the accuracy of a specific color. For example, the red color of Xerox Corporation's logo is specified as Pantone 032. Many of Xerox's printed collaterals and packaging are printed with offset or flexographic inks specifically formulated to achieve this unique red color.